


A Labour of Love

by Frangipanidownunder



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 04:29:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11200452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frangipanidownunder/pseuds/Frangipanidownunder
Summary: Watching paint dry.





	1. Scully

She takes it in, the expanse of it. It is a curious feeling, the accomplishment. She has always been used to the physicality of hard work but this task has been a cliché – a true labour of love. She sits now, smoothing her hands on the arms of the new chair. Its luxury is incongruous with its function. A rocking chair designed to lull and soothe when all she feels is anxiety and fear. She runs a hand over her rounded belly and wonders if Mulder would approve of lemon butter. She fervently hopes that he will be returned to her so she can know. He can even disapprove. She doesn’t care. She looks at each wall again. The paint strokes drying. 

It is finished. But she knows it is not the end.


	2. Mulder

He stands back to check for drips again. He has never been a good painter. Brush, roller, spray pack. It’s never the tool that is the issue. It is him, his hand, his eye. He is impatient. He doesn’t commit to the preparation. He rushes, keen to see the outcome. He leaps in blind. The runs are coagulating and he swipes the brush upwards but makes a new pattern, a splodge. It is laughable, really, his uselessness around the home. He should just hire someone. But when he found the tin of lemon butter in the back of the shed he knew he had to do it himself. He tells himself again, as he smoothes out the next dripping run, that this is a labour of love. If he puts his heart and soul into this, she will come back. 

It is finished. And he hopes it is not the end.


End file.
